Generosity
by LaPlacesDemon
Summary: Or, The Principle of the Thing. "Damian stepped towards her and she paused the unzipping of her uniform. His red domino lenses were up, and in the darkness of her apartment, with his snow-matted hair, he looked like Dick from ten years ago. She pulled herself out of the past by staring at his bird insignia (blood red, not electric blue, because red inspired more fear)."
1. Don't You Worry Child

it's me olivia again. this fic was written around a year and a half-ago right after the school year had ended. i kind of pooped most of it out in a few days. i hereby dedicate it to the tiny steph/damian community, but especially to quipquipquip. she's a star and a gem and i don't know her personally but her fics have touched me and i think of them fondly. please let me know if anything is too similar to her fics so i can change it. i should also mention that this fic was written for me, to my taste, and therefore there may be a bit of ooc-ness or plotholes or bad grammar. point those out to me too! thanks much and please enjoy and fav/review if you feel like. (many thanks to my beta cat.)

X~X~X

Some days, when the sunlight streaming through her window was a murky grey, and the smell of burnt toast from the apartment next door was way too overwhelming, and she had only gotten two hours of sleep, Steph wondered if Batman Inc. gave paid vacations. God knows she needed one- her boss always seemed to assign her mountains of paperwork and there was a steadily climbing bill pile that gave her a lump in her throat every time she saw it. Night life as a crime-fighter? Exciting. Regular life as an underpaid office worker at Wayne Enterprises whose daily meal only got as varied as the McDonald's dollar menu? Underwhelming.

Today was definitely one of those days. Steph flung her purse onto her shabby couch, barely wincing at the ominous creak it gave. She felt spent- she had gotten three hours of sleep the past two nights and was running on lukewarm coffee from the office, Captain Crunch, and a 2 a.m. chocolate milkshake. She wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for the whole weekend.

As she toed out of her worn-out pumps, a '_beeeeeep!'_ sound came from the purse she had thrown. "Oh no, oh God," Steph grumbled. She fished around in her bag for her phone. A blocked number appeared on the screen and Steph idly flipped it open. "Yeah?"

"I have been waiting in the tree outside your window for twenty minutes. You're late."

"Jeez Damian, it's Friday. The train schedule is always wonky on Fridays in the winter." Steph shrugged off her shirt, too lazy to properly unbutton it. She went to her window, undid the latch, pushed up the rickety frame. Cold wind blasted across her bare skin as she squinted out into the leafy expanse beyond. "You're Nightwing, you can open a twenty dollar lock."

Damian swung in past her, his dark suit stark against the dingy white walls of the apartment. "It's much more polite to ask."

Steph had closed her phone and was already halfway through with removing her pantyhose. She huffed, "When have you ever been polite?" The other crime-fighter didn't respond, instead shutting the window before moving behind her to help with the zipper on her skirt. Steph sighed her thanks and stepped neatly out of the hand-me-down tweed monster. By the time she had set everything over the arm of the couch, Damian was already in her kitchen, looking at the bills scattered across the floor (Steph had pushed them off of the table to eat her cereal that morning). He raised a water bill with prominent red ink and looked at her. Steph could _hear_ the objection building up in his throat.

"It's been a rough couple of days," she admitted as she pulled on a nightshirt from the laundry basket in the corner (she hadn't yet folded it- she would, though! maybe later).

"If you had agreed to my suggestions for living arrangements, you wouldn't have to worry about such things." Steph rolled her eyes and tossed Damian a shirt and sweatpants before turning around to give him privacy. Despite constantly seeing him naked, sexually and not, she liked to think turning around made her seem like a good hostess. Besides, it seemed to give him some peace of mind.

"Yeah, yeah- but you were the one who wanted to keep our relationship a secret, and it's _kiiiiiiiinda_ hard to do that if we're living together or I'm living in your safehouse or whatever. Plus, I couldn't just accept your generosity. I could barely accept the job offer Batman Inc. got me. This apartment is something of my own."

"Only just," Damian said gruffly, tugging his shirt on. Steph caught a glimpse of tan skin out of the corner of her eye and turned her head more to the left.

"Only just," she agreed. "But that's something."


	2. The Hand That Gripped You

this chapter involves sexiness and mentions of death. if either of those things bother you, please skip! i am a terrible feminist please forgive me for the fridging *bows dejectedly*. also, this story is probably complete.

X~X~X

Winter in Gotham is always gorgeous. Most of the dirtiness of the city is washed away in the virgin-white snowfall, and the grime that is so ingrained it would take a power hose to clean is covered with ice and tinsel. Some billionaire (cough cough) usually shells up enough dough that there's a Christmas tree in every park and a thousand twinkling lights on every public building. With all the sparkles and holiday cheer, it's hard for Gotham to maintain it's normal level of bitterness during the holidays, although it puts up a good fight.

Tonight was one of those nights where Gotham stubbornly, childishly, refused to let go of its reputation as "the most dangerous city in America". Three-thirty, the day before Christmas Eve, and Catwoman had decided to rob a small private art gallery snuggled on the outskirts of the city.

"Can't you be evil when I _don't_ have work in the morning?" Stephanie huffed, watching the thief flip from rooftop to rooftop carrying a bag of canvases. She juggled a pair of thermal binoculars in one hand and a Rubik's Cube in the other (don't ask). "How does she even _do_ that, anyway? Canvas weighs, like, a ton."

The other end of the line was quiet. She imagined Damian was barely restraining himself from "tt"-ing or calling her "an insufferable cow" or something like that, and she appreciated the effort, she really did- but she was tired and when she is tired she rambles and god dammit, it was snowing, what the hell Gotham.

Steph chewed a chapped lip, then said seriously, "She looks like she's heading toward Fourty-Eighth street. That's almost Bludhaven, 'Wing. Are you _sure_ I shouldn't pursue?" They didn't go into Bluhaven territory nowadays. Since the former Nightwing's "death" (they didn't say the word "retirement" in the superhero community, a sort of immature superstitious thing mixed with the idea that _you stop superhero-ing when you're dead_), Jason had been given the city to patrol. Jason liked Steph fine, sure, but he not-so-borderline _despised_ Damian, and she stuck up for her secret boyfriend by not going there if she could help it. It was the principle of the thing.

Finally, Damian broke his silence. "No. Let her go. It's Red Hood's problem now." Steph sighed and nodded. Realizing Nightwing couldn't see her (he was on the other side of the city patrolling, after all) she made a noise of confirmation.

The snow was coming down harder now, coating Steph's lashes and eyebrows in a layer of frost. The sweat and dirt from a night of fighting crime was starting to freeze on her face. Steph managed a mix between a grimace and a smile- on the plus side, she only had a half day of work today. On the down side, that half day would be topped off by a semi-mandatory office party that would probably go long into the night and feature uncomfortable questions about her love life. After sending off a quick text to Jason, she fired her grappling hook and swung off towards home. she might as well get as much sleep as she could.

The city was blessedly silent. With the colored LEDs reflecting off the snow and the barely-there chimes of distant church bells (she had to be at work at seven, God), Steph could pretend she was not coming back from a night of getting beaten up and returning the beating. _Just taking a swing around town_, Steph thought optimistically. _Just taking a swing around town with my hot secret boyfriend on the other line. _

Speaking of her hot secret boyfriend... Steph churned over Damian's behavior tonight in her head. He had been unusually terse. Sure, when it came to kicking butt he was almost as serious as could be (the #1 and #2 spots in the Batfam went to Bruce and Tim, obviously), but even he was willing to banter with her. Today, though, his arrogant assertions were either half-hearted or nonexistent. With a shudder, she realized he had sounded positively Batman-like.

Steph didn't comprehend she had been standing on her own roof until she caught sight of the landlord's garish moving Rudolph from the corner of her eye. Blinking hard, she slapped some color and sense back into her face and shimmied down the tree on the side of her building. Damian, surprisingly, was waiting for her at her window. She wrinkled her nose affectionately at his politeness. After last time, she had even given him a key, but apparently the archaic chivalry programmed into him overruled his usual practicality.

"Whaddup, Batboy?" she quipped, opening the window and shooting inside. He followed her. "Why are you here? Don't you need to sleep to be all spiffy for that banquet at the manor today?"

Damian scowled like he had been offended by Steph's questions. "I can function without much sleep, and the Wayne Christmas banquet doesn't exactly require my full brain capacity."

Steph nodded knowingly before peeling off her cowl. Her hair oozed melted snow and she was sure a bruise was forming on her jaw where some goon had landed a lucky punch. Great, she could add it to the collection. "Do you want some tea? I think I've got a couple packets of earl grey left and maybe-?"

Damian stepped towards her and she paused the unzipping of her uniform. His red domino lenses were up, and in the darkness of her apartment, with his snow-matted hair, he looked like Dick from ten years ago. She pulled herself out of the past by staring at his bird insignia (blood red, not electric blue, because red inspired more _fear_).

He took another step, and suddenly they were standing a couple inches away from each other. "What's up, Damian?" Steph asked again, this time more uneasily. He didn't answer, but leaned down to rest his forehead against Steph's. After a couple seconds, he kissed her chastely. His eyelashes fluttered on the skin of her cheeks. Steph brought both hands up to curl into the hair at the nape of his neck, and, like a flipped switch, the kiss devolved into open mouths and tongues and teeth. Impatiently, Damian tugged at the fabric of Steph's suit, and together they tried to undress. Damian threw off his clothes like the ninja he was, and the second Steph's breasts were free from her sports bra, he latched onto a nipple, bit down hard, and _sucked_. Steph gasped, abandoning her armored leggings to dig her fingers into Damian's shoulders.

"Damian, Damian, what-?" Steph's breath hitched when his hand found her other breast and started to knead. She backed up until she was pressed against her couch, which groaned. Steph thought quickly of her landlord's hate of sex-related noise complaints and shushed it. Damian stopped his ministrations momentarily to look at her, quizzical. Free of her boyfriend's teasing, Steph raised her arms over her head to try and remove her remaining glove, but before she could Damian bent her backwards over the sofa arm. She hissed when his mouth left her breast and traveled down her stomach, skirting the purple and yellow patches of bruised skin.

"What're you doing?" Damian ignored her, instead releasing a "tt!" when he encountered her pants. He unceremoniously pulled her suit and panties down around her boots and began to furiously kiss his way up the inside of her right thigh. She jerked up into the press of his lips to her pubic mound. "Okay hotshot, I get- I g-get that you can't wait for the sexytimes, but my cou- dammit- my couch is definitely not the place I want to get laid tonight."

Damian glared at her, his nose buried in her pubic hair, and Steph laughed at the image. "Too creaky, dude." She forced her way to her feet and, waddling (because her suit was bunched up between her legs and _damn_ that was hard to walk with), led him to her tiny bedroom. Damian took one glance at the wrinkled pile atop the twin bed (she had meant to change her sheets today) and pushed her up against the wall. Steph pulled his face to hers and roughly kissed him before he could descend again, and he obliged. She was just starting to move her own hands to his crotch when he abruptly sank down and pressed his face into the apex of her thighs. Splaying one large hand against her stomach so she couldn't move (and ow, she was definitely going to have a handprint on her stomach in the morning), he set to work. Steph groaned when his mouth met her clit.

"Oh my God,Damian, oh Christ." She squirmed in pleasure as he pressed open-mouthed kisses into her cunt. "Please, oh my God, Damian, seriously-"

"Please what?" she could feel the curve of his mouth drawing away.

"Listen h-here, you little shit-" Steph started, but then he was _back_ and he was tongue-fucking her and she just moaned, buried her fingers in his black locks, and held on for dear life. Through her half-lidded gaze she could see him between her thighs, and wasn't _that_ a pretty sight. An orgasm was just over the horizon and the blonde was slightly rutting up into Damian's touch with every stroke of his tongue. She moved her free hand down to touch her clit, but Damian batted it away and replaced it with his own calloused one. Steph screwed up her eyes and yanked on Damian's hair. He groaned into her and before she could even warn him, she came hard on his face, half-yelling his name.

Damian rubbed her off through her orgasm, then finally rose to kiss her again. Steph grabbed his face between her grateful, trembling hands and shoved her tongue into his mouth. She broke away gasping, and again tried to move her hands to his cock. In the faint glow of the streetlight outside her window, she could see it straining, rock-hard, against his boxer-briefs. Steph yanked them down and made to return the favor, but he was already stroking, using her own slick as lubrication, and one, two-three-four- white spattered her stomach. Steph was a bit surprised and disappointed (because her cocksucking skills were _legendary, _thank-you-very-much, and Damian knew that), but she knew impatience, and she was still sinking down from her _own _Big O so she let it slide.

She shimmied down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, because if they were going to have for-real sex, she'd like to be lying down. Yet after a couple moments, Damian pulled himself away, and she watched him pad over to the bathroom and turn on the light. Steph shakily unlaced her boots and pulled away her pants and underwear, and then damian was there again, handing her a wet towel. She wiped herself off and pulled him to the ground next to her. She towelled damian off too, then threw it onto the pile of dirty laundry. "Five pointer!"

"There's no five-pointer in basketball; it's a three pointer."

"Three pointer!" Steph grinned at him and leaned over to press a kiss to his jaw. She slung an arm around shoulders. "Exemplary work, boyfriend of mine. Eight-point-five out of ten."

She waited for a reaction, but Damian was quiet. "Uh, Damian? This is the point where you make angry noises at me and tell me that-" her voice turns deep- "'_I was at least a nine, honestly woman, did you see yourself?_'" When he didn't react to _that_, Steph bodily turned and looked at him incredulously. She frowned when she saw him looking away, almost curled into himself.

"Damian?" Steph's voice softened. "Damian, what's going on?" Her mind flashed guiltily back to his strange behavior that night. She had been so caught up- God, how could she be so thoughtless? "Damian, tell me what's wrong."

He turned towards her and she wrapped him in a hug. Against her bare shoulder, he gave an almost undetectable shake of his head. She opened her mouth to press the issue further, than closed it. She understood not wanting to talk about things. Still, her stomach twisted. Damian hadn't even let her get him _off._ Steph swallowed her curiosity and let him rest his head against her shoulder until his breathing slowed. She was almost asleep (and damn, sleeping leaned against the wall would have been total hell on her back) when she heard the muffled rasp of his rough lips opening.

"My mother is dead."

Steph bit her lip and pushed Damian away to examine him. He looked tired and empty, different than the cocky 18-year-old he usually was. "Your mother?"

"Talia. She's dead. My grandfather-" His voice broke, and anger flashed across his face at his own perceived weakness. "My father told me tonight."

Steph was stunned. She put a hand to his cheek. Shaking for a different reason now, she pressed kisses to his jawline, to his neck, to his mouth. With her other hand, she intertwined her fingers with his. "You're staying here tonight. Bruce can go suck a dick." He huffed out a laugh at that, but it was fluttering and small.

She pulled him down so his head was resting in her lap. After briefly carding her free fingers through his hair, Steph settled a blanket that had fallen off the bed around Damian and herself. The heat and adrenaline from patrol and from sex had started to wear off, and Steph was glad her flat had a working heater. Outside, the snow drifted down in soft, steady flurries. Her comm chirped somewhere from her belt pockets, but Steph made no attempt to get up. It faded away, and the world was silent and white again. Steph sighed and gripped her boyfriend's hand.

"Merry Christmas, huh?"


	3. The Words You Left

how obvious is it that i dislike tim lmao. beep boop drama time, because angst is important to me and also i am five.

X~X~X

Steph woke up to the sound of drills.

Confused and scared, she trashed her head wildly side to side and fell off her couch. She scanned her apartment, hypervigilant, until she realized it was coming from the floor below her. Her neighbor Frank, then. Grumpy and breathing far too hard, the blonde pounded on the carpet, which released a giant cloud of dust. "Shut up, Frank!" '_Who even does home repairs this close to Christmas, anyways?_'

At the answering revv of the drill, Steph sighed and ran her hand through her tangled hair. That fall had seemed to wake up all the bruises from the past week and they were throbbing angrily at her. Wait... "I definitely don't remember falling asleep on the couch." She looked at her shirt and panties. "I definitely don't remember wearing these either."

What had she been doing last night?

"Your snoring could wake a coma patient."

Ah, yes., _that_ was what she had been doing last night. Or who. She shook her head again as the memories of her late night flooded back. Gratefully, she accepted the tea Damian offered her, and made a happy noise as the earl grey soothed her rough throat. Steph glanced at him as she chugged the drink- her boyfriend looked pretty put together, even if he was only wearing a Gotham U t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Still, Steph could tell he wasn't all there. He had plum-purple bruises under his blue eyes, darker than usual, and his perfect hair was ever so slightly messed up on one side like he had been clutching it. To a trained eye, Damian Wayne was most definitely hurting, and in a rare moment of introspectiveness Steph was grateful she was trusted enough to be shown this. Their relationship was still in its fledgling stages, and Waynes were nothing if not immensely put together.

"How're you holding up?" Steph asked quietly, setting aside her empty mug. She got off the floor and sat criss-cross-applesauce on the couch, which whined ominously in response.

"I don't need your concern, Brown," Damian said. He was staring somewhere near her toe, and his usual frown looked more like a pained grimace.

"Hey, you don't get to do this to me." Steph glared, then thought of something. "What time is it?" Shit, was she late for work?

"The roads downtown are closed because of the snowfall."

"Oh, well..." Steph took one of Damian's hands between her mug-warmed fingers and turned it over, taking in the bruised knuckles and cuts and burns. Occupational hazard. "I was gonna take the day off anyways."

"Why?" he said. His fingers twitched in Steph's grip, and he finally met her eyes. He looked exhausted and angry.

Steph shook her hair out of her face (damn, she needed a haircut). "Because I hate Christmas parties? C'mon, you know why."

Damian glowered at her, and she glowered back. "Tt. Are you deaf, woman? I don't _need _your pity or your worry. I'm not a child, and I'm not fragile." He tried to tug his hand away but Steph crushed it between hers.

"Your mom is dead, Damian," she stated bluntly. "It's okay to let other people help you when someone you know has died. Especially, y'know, your girlfriend. Grief doesn't make you weak."

Damian wrenched himself free. "My _mother_ was a terrible person and a criminal. I cared nothing for her, and I'm not _grieving_." He walked into the kitchen. Exasperated, Steph wrapped herself in a blanket and followed. The room was surprisingly clean- the dishes had been done and the magnets on the fridge straightened. The usual pile of bills was suspiciously absent. Steph had never really pegged Damian for a grief cleaner (or someone who actually _knew _how to clean) but maybe Alfred had rubbed off on him. Probably had something to do with that Wayne need for perfection.

"Don't pull that crap with me, dude. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but don't lie to me." Damian just stared at her. Steph sighed and put a hand to her shoulder. She totally _sucked _at this stuff this early in the morning. "Just... just stay here, okay? I'm going to go clean up, so we can have this argument while I look semi-decent. Stay _here_." She pointed at a chair like he was an errant cat. "Right there."

Damian's sneer deepened, and he crossed his arms. Steph blew away a sidebang. "Fine, stand there then. Whatever." She made to leave the kitchen, but before she went she laid a hand on Damian's arm. He tensed, but she just rubbed his bicep once and left.

Steph was pulling her hair up when the doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" she called. She quickly finished a messy bun and padded to the door. It was probably Lydia, the Gotham U student across the hall. She had called yesterday to say she would stop by today and drop off Steph's "Amazon package". Steph mentally applauded Batman Inc. for disguising their weapon shipments in a way that could be so easily misdirected or stolen (that was supposed to be a temporary cover, but for an organization run by the most efficient man in the world it sure was slow about finding a replacement).

"Hey-" Steph began as she swung open the door. Instead of seeing the redhead she was expecting, a frowning boy in a reindeer sweater greeted her. "Oh. Uh."

"You weren't answering your phone _or _your comm," Tim said by way of greeting. he looked down, and his eyes widened slightly. "Also, you're not wearing pants."

Steph blinked rapidly. Oh _shit_, Damian was in the kitchen! Tim was here and Damian was in the kitchen and Tim didn't know Damian was in the kitchen! "But... the roads are closed."

Her ex just sighed at her and raised an eyebrow. Right. Red Robin. Steph shook herself and crossed her fingers. '_Don't come out, oh boyfriend of mine. Use your big Wayne brain and don't come out_,' she prayed. Closing the door a little, she said wryly, "I didn't answer because I was sleeping. Y'know, that thing that normal people do. Usually not upside-down. And _hi _too, Tim, is that a light-up reindeer sweater you're wearing?"

Tim blushed his little Tim not-blush and said, "Cass made me."

"Oh, Cass is home from Hong Kong already?"

"Yeah, for the Wayne Christmas banquet." The one that Steph was definitely not invited to? Ah, great.

They were silent for a few moments. Tugging on her shirt, Steph groaned internally. Tim may have gotten less awkward with age, but only by a microscopic amount. She plastered on a patented Steph-smile (all rights reserved) and asked, "Sooo... what's up, Timster? What's so important you just _had_ to call me, beep me?"

Tim looked pained. "It's about Damian."

Steph schooled her expression into a blank one. "What about him?" Oh shitty, shit shitty shit. '_Deep breaths, Steph_.'

"Can we talk inside?"

"Uhhhh..." Dammit, Steph was a Bat! Her snarky comments were legendary! On a regular day, she could totally make up an excuse to keep her ex-boyfriend out of the apartment her current boyfriend was in in five seconds flat. Steph cursed her tiredness and her preoccupied mind. "Are you sure you can't just whisper it in my ear?"

"Steph, this is serious," Tim deadpanned.

"Okay, yeah, it's just my apartment is really messy, so..." Steph reluctantly opened the door enough that Tim could slip in, and then dashed to the window, picked up Damian's Nightwing stuff (oh, so Damian _hadn't_ snuck out), and lobbed it into the kitchen. Tim, who thankfully had been looking at Steph's '90s era TV like it was an offense to his eyeballs, turned around at the clang of metal and kevlar against the fridge and looked at her questioningly. "Sex outfit. It's laundry day." She shrugged, and she could tell Tim was fighting not to roll his eyes. "So what about our resident BabyBat?"

"He's missing." At Steph's raised eyebrow, Tim explained, "Apparently he got some news yesterday and just took off. Bruce thought we should just leave him alone, that he'd come back in time for the party, but Alfred told Dick and you know how he gets. Damian didn't even patrol last night, so we know it's bad, and we don't need him hurting himself or others."

'_Ouch Tim, way to be worried_.' "Wait, what do you mean he didn't patrol? Seriously? What exactly was this news?" Had Damian just waited outside her window until she got home? Steph's heart fluttered, then clenched.

"No, he didn't. Babs was pissed." Tim stood straighter. "About the news… according to some of Bruce's sources, Talia was killed two days ago in an explosion. It was a weapons trade gone wrong."

Steph couldn't help but subtly snoop for more info. "But she's Talia. Her dad is Ra's al Ghul. Can't she, y'know, pop into a Lazarus Pit and be on her merry way?"

"The thing that went off was a small, botched-up hydrogen bomb. Everything in the blast radius was obliterated." Tim rubbed his eyes. "You can't use the Lazarus Pit if you don't have a body to regenerate from." Steph's heart sank to her toes. That explained that. "We have to find him now, today. The Waynes need to show up at the banquet tonight. We could explain away maybe Cass's absence or Jason's, but Bruce was supposed to make some sort of important announcement about the future of Wayne Enterprises, so all his, uh, heirs are supposed to show. And since Damian is the only non-adopted one... Worst case scenario, we'll call up M'gann or J'onn or just lie, but we'd prefer the real thing."

Steph bit her lip to keep her sudden anger from bubbling over. Her stomach felt like she had just eaten stones. "Okay. I'll go look for him. You need to go be a Wayne."

Tim looked at her almost gently. "Steph..." Steph wanted to punch him in his dumb puppy face.

"No, Tim. Go find him. He's gotta show for that party, right? Appearances are everything."

"Well, it's not like- it's not like that." Tim frowned, but when Steph calmly shook her head he backed off. "Can you check around here and the docks, then?"

"Okey-dokey, Timmy." Steph grinned and shooed him towards the door. "Just call if you need anything, okay? I promise i'll check my phone. Scout's honor."

At the threshold, Tim dug his heels in. "Steph, are you _sure _you haven't seen him? You know he's supposed to have a safehouse in this building. I was going to check after touching base with you, but-" Ah yes. That cover story, in case someone caught Nightwing sneaking into Batgirl's highrise.

"Nope, he hasn't been here, trust me. Now go away so I can go get my Batgirl on."

She managed to push him out into the hallway, and he turned to say goodbye. "You know, I could wait for you, and we could patrol together."

Steph laughed. It sounded like a mockery of her usual one, hollow and poisoned. "No, definitely not Tim. I wouldn't do that to Cass." Tim stared at her, puzzled, but she just smiled and waved. "Merry Christmas. I'll call you if I get anything."

"...Merry Christmas."

Steph waited until she saw Tim go around the corner, then shut the door with a click and ran into kitchen. Damian was leaning against the stove, arms crossed. From the murderous glint in his eye and the way his hands were clenched into tight fists, she could tell he hadn't miraculously become deaf in the past ten minutes. Steph slowly sank into a chair and curled up in it, her knees to her chest. She could tell Damian didn't want to be touched.

They stayed there in silence for what seemed like forever and a day. Steph was fighting down feelings of worry and hunger, not to mention the urge to talk, so she almost didn't catch it when Damian said, "My mother-"

Steph jerked her head around towards him. "My mother told me she was proud of me exactly once, before I was sent to Gotham." She waited for him to go on, but he didn't elaborate. Instead, he put his fists to his eyes, breathed once, then stood up straight. "I need to go back to the manor."

"Okay," Steph said. There was a growing knot in her throat, and she wanted to say, '_No, we still haven't talked about this, and if you leave now you're not _going _to talk about it, just chill out for a sec, and P.S. Tim was wrong._' "Okay."

Damian had already begun pulling off his university shirt. Steph got up and grabbed his uniform from where it was curled on the floor. The bolo sticks clacked together as she handed it to him, piece by piece. She made to turn away, like always, but Damian stopped her. "Don't."

"Okay," she repeated. Steph watched as Damian made quick work of his sweatpants, piling them on the chair. His tan skin had a Milky Way of scars and stitches and bruises and burn marks ingrained in it. She had traced them in the afterglow, sometimes, memorizing the way his constellations changed as his body transformed and healed after each new fight. Now, though, was not the afterglow. The Nightwing under armour came on, and then the suit itself, covering up the pockmark-stars with dark black. The outfit traveled up his body quickly and efficiently with the skilled hand of a person who wriggled into a skin-tight kevlar suit each night, every night.

After he was done pulling on his gloves, Steph made to hand him the domino. He stilled and let her stick it to his face, one hand on his cheek. Hopefully the glue was still strong enough from last night that it could stand a swing across the city. Damian looked at her, and she pressed an almost-undetectable button at the side that flipped down the red reflective lenses. Steph stared at Damian's blank face for a minute, then released him. They walked to the window together, not touching.

"Damian." He was half-way out, but he stopped for her, and right now that was the sweetest thing she had ever seen in her life. "If you, y'know, want to talk? I'll be here, in this apartment. I'm not going on patrol tonight, 'cause Cass is in town so she can just cover my shift. Even if you don't want to talk and you just need a booty call or whatever, I'll still be here. I am a stinkin' _great_ shoulder to cry on."

"I have never _cried_," Damian told her.

"Okay, well, just in case you feel like breaking your streak." Steph was holding her breath, but she didn't know why.

"I won't," he said. He made to swing himself out the rest of the way, then, almost like he was forgetting something, gave her a faint nod. She closed her eyes for a couple seconds, and Damian was gone.

After a few seconds, Steph stuck her hand out the window to catch an errant snowflake, but the snow had finally stopped. She shook herself, straightened up, and shut the window with a bang. The basement washing machine was probably free right now.


	4. Ocean Bluer

did you know all these chapters are named after song lyrics and quotes? this chapter, for example, is named after an italian mermaid melody song. happy almost new year's, peeps.

X~X~X

For a week, there was complete radio silence. Steph spent Christmas by herself and boxing day (which Beryl had introduced her to a few years ago and which she had adopted happily ever since) with her mom. After that first night, she went on patrol regularly, and every time someone else in the 'fam checked in she wanted to ask them where he was - but Tim and Babs had said they didn't know, and if Tim and Babs didn't know then no one else probably did. Steph had seen him on TV the day he had left, though. Steadily making her way through a bag of marshmallows (a luxury in her household), she had watched as he entered the glittering event in an impeccable, thousand dollar suit and exited early with a couple of giggling girls trailing behind him.

"Do you think i should give him some space?" Steph had asked when she met up with Cass on the 27th for post-patrol waffles. She had explained the situation very simply to Black Bat, fake names and changed situations and everything. Cass looked at her over the rim of her coffee cup, and Steph felt like she was being silently judged.

"...Yes," her best friend had finally said, and that was that.

Still, that didn't stop Steph from questioning, in the quiet moments during work and patrol, whether or not he was still in Gotham or had vanished somewhere else. She thought he could be burying Talia, or what was left. ('Nothing _was left, Steph_.') She thought that maybe this was his way of saying he wanted a break. Sometimes, at night, she thought she could hear his soft footsteps in his safe house the next floor up. She thought a lot of things.

Steph wasn't weepy, though. She was a tough, independent girl with a buttload of female agency, and the goddamn Batgirl to boot. She loved that pompous jerk (not that he knew that yet) and was worried as hell, but she went to work and she fought and she cracked jokes and tried to make normal. When she tried reading an article about this situation on her laptop, the columnist extolled the virtues of trust and respect and "setting free your loved ones", so she reminded herself of that whenever she woke up wondering where he was. Still, she always left the window unlocked on principle, and refused to wash the Gotham U shirt.

For New Years' Eve, she was invited to a party at Lydia's. It was a college party, sure, but the girl had a rockin' musical taste and access to a seemingly unlimited supply of Boddington's (even though she was only 19 and lived in this shittrap of a building, honestly _how_). She planned to slip out early to patrol, though, because she'd have to pick up the slack an Oracle-less night always left - in a rare fit of 'oh yes we are normal people too', the Graysons were going to Times' Square with the kids, lucky bats - and it didn't seem like she would have anyone to kiss at midnight anyways.

So she went, and she made small talk with college kids and found out that the Boddington's all came from Lydia's douchey London boyfriend jackson and watched Lydia skype her friends in California (who also seemed to be her boyfriends and girlfriends, in a surprising twist of events). She was fidgeting for the fiftieth time with her sparkly purple dress, her one and only clubbing outfit bought a lifetime ago with Kara, when Lydia came up to her.

"Someone's at the door for you."

Steph frowned. Hopefully not Tim again because that last meeting had not exactly been fun. "Who is it?"

"This guy in my Beginner's Combinatorics class. He says he knows you?" Lydia flipped her perfect hair over her shoulder, shrugged, and went to go make herself another drink.

Steph was bewildered. "Uh, sure, okay." Wary, she began pushing through the throng of people to the door. Somewhere between the second kissing couple and the bathroom, her heart flip-flopped, and she knew with dead certainty who the person at the door would be. Freakin' Lydia- like she didn't know who "this guy" was. With an almost audible pop, she extricated herself from the mob and found herself looking at, guess who, her ridiculous boyfriend Damian Wayne.

Anger and relief and happiness coiled together in her chest, and her lungs felt tight. "Hey, Damian," Steph said a bit breathlessly. She wanted to hit herself and then hit him. Her boyfriend had disappeared off the face of the earth for seven days, and _that_ was how she greeted him?

Damian stared at her. "Hello." His voice sounded like he had a cold, even though he looked perfectly fine. More than fine, in fact. He was dressed in a casual suit and a crisp white shirt like he had just gotten back from a day at the country club that painfully reminded Steph of how long it had been since she had last had sex. Steph also noticed that his eyes were still bruised purple like he hadn't slept in a couple days and there was a new scar on his neck.

"We should probably go over to my apartment for this talk," Steph said solemnly. Shouting out a quick thanks to Lydia, she shut the door and jiggled her own open. As soon as Damian was inside, she slammed it shut and pulled him down to kiss her. His lips were warm and chapped, and at least that was normal.

After a few minutes of 'thank-God-you're-alive-and-we're-together' makeouts, Steph broke away. "Right now my brain is between kissing you more until your brain is leaking out of your ears before crying grossly, or punting you off the New Trigate Bridge and then doing the messy crying." She gripped his arms. "Start talking, bucko."

Damian grimaced, but he let Steph sit him down on the couch while she stood in front of him. "I was on a mission, Brown."

"Of course," Steph huffed, because she couldn't help herself. Also, she was pissed, did she mention that?

His blue eyes flashed. "_Don't_- do not interrupt me. Please." The blonde grumbled, but nodded. Damian didn't break out the "please"s unless he was super serious. "I went my grandfather, to see if my mother was truly dead. She is." He paused, then went on more quietly, "The weapons shipment was from Lexcorp. Grandfather was waiting to see how Batman would react to the news of Talia's death before striking, but my father has never cared for my mother enough to avenge her death. When nothing happened, my grandfather turned to me to kill those responsible."

Steph stared at him.

"Tt. Don't think me a fool- I didn't kill that bald bastard," Damian grit out. "I have more self control than that." He clenched his hands, and Steph noticed with a start that his cufflinks were purple. "After he realized that I would not play his game, Ra's got angry. He's become more and more unhinged since Father's comeback, and my mother was his only child. He decided to send me back to Gotham as a message to my father."

"Send you back?" Steph asked, unable to be quiet any longer. Seriously, what the hell was this family?

Her boyfriend sneered. "In pieces. Luckily, in his rage he seemed to have forgotten that I was trained by the same assassins he sent to kill me. I was able to defeat the last of them around West Virginia."

Steph frowned. "Does Bruce know about this?"

"Why?" Damian demanded. "I handled it."

"Yeah, you did," Steph said. "But Ra's might still have a kill-slash-maim order on Nightwing. Isn't it dangerous to be here?"

"No. Whatever Ra's thinks to send, I can handle." Damian's expression darkened, and he looked like he wanted to stab something.

Steph realized she wouldn't get anywhere with this, and plowed on to the real problem. "Okay, Damian. I get that you think you can do everything because you're practically Ninja Ken or whatever. But couldn't you have at least called me? Or texted? Sent a messenger pigeon? No one knew where you _were_, Damian. No one! Including, _hmm_, let's think, your freaking girlfriend! I was worried sick about you, you ass! I could've helped!"

"I was fighting off _asassins_, woman. i didn't have time to indulge your puerile need for affection."

Steph shot off the couch like it had bit her in the butt. If she were a meta like Kon she probably would have broken a table with her bare hands by now. "Puer- oh my God, _puerile_? I didn't even know whether or not you were alive! That's not puerile, you fucking douche, that's being a decent human being!"

"I'm sorry that everyone must cater to your needs, Ms. _Brown_, but some of us actually have important things to do," Damian spit. His voice was full of poison, and Steph felt like she's been electrocuted.

"Yeah, excuse the fuck out of me. I know that you're suffering right now, but that doesn't mean you can make other people suffer, _Damian_. Jesus Christ with a jetpack, you could've been killed. You were supposed to come back! I waited for you to come back!"

Damian just rolled his eyes at her and muttered under his breath, "Insufferable shrew."

Steph dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands and bit her lip to keep herself from laughing bitterly. "This is what couples _do_," she said. "They communicate with each other. They tell each other shit and they don't fucking leave the other one hanging dry. This is what good couples do, Damian, and why couldn't you do this? Because you were fucking gallivanting across New England, fighting ninjas." Steph knew this wasn't true but she was so mad it just spilled out. Saying it gave her a vicious pleasure.

"Well, maybe we shouldn't be a couple then!" Damian yelled. He rose off the couch and stared down at her furiously. Nearly a foot taller than her, he looked so much like Bruce that she had to resist the urge to flinch.

At first, Steph opened her mouth to shoot something witty back. But then the meaning of his words hit her like a bus, and the blonde felt all the blood drain away from her flushed cheeks. "You don't mean that." Damian was silent. "Damian, you don't mean that." He looked away from her, and her heart stopped. "_Damian wayne, you don't mean that_."

"...No, i don't," Damian admitted. He sank back down into the couch, which groaned under his weight. Despite his 18 years, he looked so much like the lost 10 year old that didn't know what a moonbounce was she wanted to choke. Instead, she stood silently before him and fisted her hands in her dress.

Finally, after a full minute of quiet, Dteph breathed in deeply. "Fon't fucking- don't _ever _say shit like that. oh my god, please don't." Dhe exhaled and put a hand over her eyes.

"Okay," Damian agreed.

"Do not _ever_ say that again."

"I won't."

Steph took another breath, then almost laughed. In these months since she started dating the youngest Bat, she had used deep breathing so much her lungs were probably permanently expanded. More than ten years later and those pregnancy classes were _really_ coming in handy. "Look, oh boyfriend of mine: I understand that a Bat's gotta do what a Bat's gotta do. I know that you're not touchy-feely either. but you're my boyfriend and I care about you." '_Love you_,' she added to herself, but that was not a bombshell she wanted to drop right now. "I want to help you, even if you don't want me to or I know I shouldn't. Okay? I know you're going through a hard time, and I know that this is _your _shit to deal with, but you gotta give a little."

Damian was starting to look emotionally constipated. "Next time, just call okay? Call your girl before you run off to meet with Ra's and his merry band of killer minions."

"I thought," he said, "that if I called you you would ask to come along."

"Yeah, I probably would've," Steph said mildly.

"You couldn't come along. I didn't want you to _ask_." Damian fingered a cufflink. "I won't accept your help for this."

"What does 'this' constitute, exactly?" Steph asked, bemused. Had he heard anything she was saying?

"My grandfather. My family."

"A little late for that, Damian." Steph rolled her eyes. "I may be the yellow-headed stepchild in the Batfam, but I've been swinging from rooftops with them since I was fourteen." She grabbed the hand that was fiddling with the button. "I've battled Ra's before, too. I understand you want me to stay out of your business, but-"

"Not my business," Damian muttered. "I just don't want you to come along only to fumble around and hurt yourself. you're a hassle." Steph paused, then laughed. She dropped Damian's hand and swung her arms around the back of his neck. The boy blinked, but tentatively brought his hands to her waist.

"I worry about you too, you jerk," Steph said fondly. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Any other time, she might've called him out on his assumption that she couldn't take care of herself, but she let it slide. His mom, one of the most powerful women in the world, had died only a few days ago, and she was, frankly, considered by the public a B-rate superhero still ostracized by the team she was in. She ran her hands down his arms and kissed his eyelids, then his forehead, then his nose. He was leaning up to kiss her for real when the alarm on her watch went off.

"Ah crap," Steph breathed. "Time for patrol."

Damian glared at her wrist like it had keyed his car. Steph had never seen a sparkly purple Rapunzel watch experience such vitriol before. "It can wait." He pulled her down to press his lips to hers. Steph hummed happily into the smooch, but pushed him off after a minute.

"It probably can't. It's New Years' Eve, and that means drunken frat boys and tons and tons of drugs. Calendar Man got released from Arkham a few days ago, so he'll probably try something too." She squeezed his shoulder and made for the closet where she kept all her batgirl gear. "Are you going to patrol tonight?"

"East End," Damian huffed. Steph sympathized- that was one of the worst neighborhoods to have when you really wanted to beat something up. It was filled with newbie drug dealers who were so mindless it should've been illegal and fear gas junkies that attacked anything costumed. But because of the sheer size of Gotham and the limited amount of Bats, Oracle's master schedule was law.

"Okay, well here's the dealio: why don't you and I meet up here after patrol? Tomorrow I don't have work, so we can hang out here and eat waffles and watch _The Proposal_. And by watch _The Proposal_, I mean make out like teenagers while Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds fight in the background." Steph struggled out of her high heels and kicked them in a corner.

"Whatever you wish, Brown." Damian shrugged. He sounded long-suffering, but the blonde knew about Damian's secret love for Sandra Bullock movies (She swore he had looked almost emotional during _The Blind Side_).

Steph smiled at him one last time before stripping off her dress. Duty called.


End file.
